THE 1992 CAMPAIGN: The Independent; While Perot's Economic Plans Are Detailed, Other Positions Remain Vague

By STEVEN A. HOLMES,

Published: October 19, 1992

DALLAS, Oct. 18—
When it comes to slashing the Federal deficit and spurring the economy, Ross Perot has cooked up a meaty stew of specific tax increases, spending cuts and tax incentives. But when he moves into the noneconomic areas of public policy, he serves up ideas that might evoke a cry from a past Presidential election: Where's the beef?

As specific and as bold as Mr. Perot has been on the economy and the deficit in his book, "United We Stand," and in his two 30-minute television presentations, his positions on issues like education, governmental reform, crime and health care have tended to be either vague, not completely worked through, of dubious constitutionality or devoid of any suggestion of how much they might cost or who would pay. Some issues, including affirmative action and gun control, have not been addressed at all.

Vagueness is also characteristic of many proposals put forward by President Bush and Gov. Bill Clinton, but outside the economic realm, Mr. Perot's ideas tend to seem more nebulous than those of most Presidential candidates because he has taken virtually no questions from reporters or others that might shed more light on his proposals. In at least one area, controlling spiraling health-care costs, Mr. Perot's lack of specificity calls into question whether he could actually achieve his stated goal of balancing the Federal budget in five years. Clear but Incomplete

On the highly contentious issue of abortion Mr. Perot is very clear. He comes down unequivocally on the side of a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy and for Federal financing of abortions for low-income women.

But while supporting the right to an abortion, Mr. Perot has never commented on limitations like a 24-hour waiting period or parental notification for minors seeking abortions.

The difference between Mr. Perot's specificity on deficit reduction and his tentativeness in other areas reflects the importance he assigns to economic issues. "He had never really formulated positions on what he considered the secondary issues, which was basically everything other than the economy," said Doug Austin, a graduate student at the University of California School of Public Policy who worked on civil rights proposals as part of a task force Mr. Perot hired to help him formulate positions on issues. Issues Development Interrupted

He and other former members of the task force say they had virtually completed a plan to shrink the deficit but had not finished work in other areas when the Texan dropped out of the race in July.

"We hadn't gotten that far," said John P. White, an Eastman-Kodak vice president who headed the issues staff. "Our focus was to get started on priorities and concentrate on the centerpiece, which was the economics. We were going to get more involved in other issues once we got that out of the way."

Because Mr. Perot's noneconomic platform is a work in progress, some of its features raise questions about his vow of balancing the budget. For example, in the half-hour of television time he bought this weekend, Mr. Perot suggested that $268 billion could be saved by changes in Federal entitlement programs. He said that slightly more than half of those savings, about $141 billion, would come through capping the rising costs of health care, which would result in less money being spent on Medicare and Medicaid.

But Mr. Perot does not provide details on how such savings could be achieved. David Parkhurst, a policy expert who worked on the entitlement section of Mr. Perot's platform, said the $141 billion figure was a goal and represented a 50 percent reduction in the projected increase in health-care costs over five years after discounting for inflation. But "we never got to the point where we could put together a solid health-care plan," said Mr. Parkhurst, a public policy analyst for a Washington law firm.

In his book and in public appearances, Mr. Perot expresses general support for free trade. But like Mr. Clinton, Mr. Perot says he would seek to insure that the North American Free Trade Agreement did not result in the loss of American jobs to Mexico. Similarity in Education Plans

In education, Mr. Perot's plan is remarkably similar to President Bush's America 2000 proposal. Having pushed through ambitious changes for the Texas school system in the 1980's, Mr. Perot advocates expanding a national program of early childhood education, though he does not say whether it would be open only to low-income children.

He also proposes national tests to measure student progress, more autonomy for schools and opening the certification process so that business people, legal professionals, military personnel or others could become teachers without the normal training.

Siding more closely with President Bush, Mr. Perot advocates allowing parents to choose whether to send their children to public, private or parochial schools; while he does not mention the use of vouchers to pay for this, it seems implicit. Unlike the President, Mr. Perot says pilot programs should be carefully analyzed before a school-choice program is adopted nationwide.

"We won't know if this will work until several states try it on a pilot basis," he says in his book. "The time for debate is after the results are in."

In his book Mr. Perot makes high priorities of changes in both the Government and the way Federal elections are conducted. He has proposed measures like eliminating political action committees, making it illegal for foreign companies or interests to contribute to election campaigns and holding Presidential elections on weekends.

Yet some experts, including the policy analyst who worked on the issue for Mr. Perot, doubt that some of his major proposals are constitutional. In a 1976 case, Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court ruled that PAC contributions could be restricted. But the Justices have never ruled on whether PAC's can be eliminated.

Given the current makeup of the High Court, a number of experts say they believe Justices would find that doing away with PAC's violated the First Amendment's protection of free speech and freedom of association.

"I think the PAC issue would have raised a red flag for the Court," said Mr. Parkhurst, who worked on the issue for Mr. Perot. Many Whats, Few Hows

Mr. Perot's proposal to outlaw contributions from foreign interests was studied by the Federal Elections Commission two years ago. But the commission's staff determined that it would be difficult to enforce, in part because it would restrict the rights of American employees of foreign-owned businesses that operate in this country.

In the area of crime, Mr. Perot argues for increased emphasis on drug treatment but does not say how it would be financed. He also advocates mandatory drug testing and counseling for all prisoners, parolees and for those on probation, mandatory life sentences without parole for anyone convicted of three violent crimes, and a requirement that any inmate be literate and have a marketable skill before being paroled.

Andrew Wise, an aide to a Republican Texas state legislator and the analyst who worked on Mr. Perot's crime proposals, said the thrust of the candidate's ideas is to reduce the nation's high recidivism rate. But Mr. Wise said that he did not have the opportunity to work through questions like how much Mr. Perot's program would cost, how to get states to implement them, and what would be considered a marketable skill for prison inmates.

"We knew that as we put some of these ideas out for debate, we would have gotten a lot of questions from reporters, and that would have forced us to refine what we said," Mr. Wise said.